This is a great article which talks about the rapid speed with which South Korean economy has been growing. Till 1960 it was one of the poorest economy with all resources exhausted after the war, but now it has a gross domestic product per person of $31,750 compared compared with $31,550 for the EU. Although it did suffer from the 2008 financial crisis but it gained back the momentum quickly and currently south Korea is enjoying growth of around 6% with unemployment of 3%.
However this pace of growth can not continue forever and South Korea will have to come up with new ways of maintaining its growth as it has almost reached its optimum level.
South Koreans give a lot of importance to hard work and education and put in more hours of work then their Dutch or German counterparts. But again there is an extent to which they can do this.
ReplyDeleteFor sure South Korea needs to come up with new ways to maintain or expand their growth level. Nothing last forever there's always new technology or other factors that will affect the growth level.
ReplyDeleteSouth Korea has one of the highest literacy rates around the world. Its recent industrialization compared with other modern nations along with its relatively small size allows it to produce a sophisticated and new infrastructure, supporting business in technology. For example, South Korea is expected within two years to reach an average internet speed of 1GB per second.
ReplyDeleteI feel that though South Korea is a great developed nation...
ReplyDeleteSmall businesses have trouble flourishing...
this is because of the anti-entrepreneurship attitude of the govt.
As such if one company suddenly faces a loss then the whole economy could be vulnerable
Except Japan, which is more familiar to most of people in the world. South Korea is indeed a highly-developed country. After the Han River Miracle, it got industrialization and modernization, also with a generation of lost. The problem in South Korea right now, is very similar to some other countries in West Europe or Japan, the aging of generation and high unemployment rate in the young generation.
ReplyDeleteSouth Korea's magical story of rags to riches overnight has always fascinated me. It is a great example of what trade and globalization can do. However, I feel that they are reaching towards their steady state which is why their growth is slowing down. Until unless they do something that shifts their steady state up, i do not think we can see the kind of growth rates that they have experienced in the past 30 years.
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